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Chapter 50
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Demon Copperhead, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Exploitation
Class, Social Hierarchy, and Stereotypes
Pain and Addiction
Toxic Masculinity
Community and Belonging
Summary
Analysis
The next week, Maggot asks Demon to pick him up from Mrs. Peggot’s. After he does, Maggot gives him directions to another house, where they pick up Swap-Out. Demon hadn’t been aware that Maggot and Swap-Out knew each other. Next, they drive to a Walgreens, where Swap-Out climbs into a tiny hole in the building and steals Sudafed before coming out three minutes later. On Tuesday, Fast Forward calls and asks Demon if he wants to go for a ride to Richmond. Demon says no, and when he asks about Emmy, Fast Forward says they’re not together anymore.
Addiction has driven Maggot to escalate his thefts from Walgreens ( the pseudoephedrine in Sudafed is used to make meth). Maggot drags Demon along, and before he knows it, Demon has become an accessory to the crime by driving the getaway car, showing the widespread destruction of addiction.
Themes
Tommy’s boss, Pinkie, offers “Anonymous” $10 per week for a new comic each week. Demon has no shortage of ideas. As the comic gets more popular, Pinkie says they need to sign a contract, so Tommy tells her that Demon draws the comic. Around the same time, Demon gets fired from Sonic. He goes to dinner at Ms. Annie and Mr. Armstrong’s house because he wants to talk to Ms. Annie about the contract at the newspaper. When he brings up the $10 Pinkie has offered, Ms. Annie says the amount is far too low. She says she’ll call Pinkie herself to negotiate the contract and will say she’s Demon’s agent. Both Ms. Annie and Mr. Armstrong tell Demon he should think about going back to school, and they gently push him to stop using drugs.
The novel shows the potentially unglamorous side of making art. As Ms. Annie says, art is work, and part of that work involves making informed decisions about the business side of things. Through that description, then novel makes a broader point to show that for Demon (and, by extension, people in the Appalachian community), there are no miraculous fixes waiting to be discovered: there is no superhero who will come and save him. Instead, any change in Demon’s life will come from careful, concentrated action sustained over time.
Themes
Demon agrees to do weekly comics for the newspaper. Ms. Annie pushes Pinkie to get $50 per strip. Tommy will help him with story ideas and going over the art in pen with a steady hand, so they’ll split the fee 50-50. The night Demon signs the contract, Rose Dartell calls him at three in the morning. She says she has something from Emmy to give to him. He meets her at a park, and she tells him that Fast Forward cut Mouse out of his business and started dealing directly with Mexican traffickers in Atlanta. He had been using Emmy as “bait,” forcing her to have sex with men so they’ll do business with Fast Forward. Demon tells Rose he doesn’t believe her, and then she hands him something. When he looks down, Demon sees that it’s the “snake bracelet” that he gave Emmy when they were children.
This chapter reveals the true nature of Fast Forward’s character, which highlights Demon’s difficulties in choosing the right people to turn to for support and connection. While Demon thought of Fast Forward as a charming, larger-than-life figure, he seems to be closer to the coal or pharmaceutical companies that exploit people without caring about how their actions impact others, which is what Fast Forward has done to Emmy. On some level, whether he is right or wrong, Demon feels personally implicated in Fast Forward’s actions because he introduced Fast Forward to Emmy.
Themes
